The present invention relates to an article retrieval support apparatus such as a personal computer for supporting retrieval of articles when making reference to articles which have been posted to a network such as the Internet, and the present invention also relates to a recording medium which can be read by the article retrieval support apparatus.
Communication systems have become popular to exchange opinions with numerous people in which they make reference to or post an article from a personal computer which is connected to a network such as the Internet or personal computer network. When the number of associated people and thus the number of articles increase in such a communication system, it becomes difficult to retrieve an article which the user would like to make reference to.
With this point in mind, it has been proposed for an apparatus which comprises a function of supporting retrieval of articles by displaying on the screen a list of identification data of articles which may be miniature image of contents of an article or of images attached to an article.
However, although the conventional apparatus comprising such a function as to display the list of identification data provides the user a retrieval supporting function to make him or her intuitively understand the content of the article by the identification data which may be a figure or a miniature image, the number of articles that the user is able to retrieve through confirming each of the figures or miniature images with his or her own eyes is limited. Therefore, the retrieval supporting function does not work effectively when the number of articles is enormous.
Further, when generating miniature images as identification data of articles, there are different methods for obtaining clear miniature images, depending on whether the original image is a binary image such as a text, or a color image such as a bit map, and in case of a color image, it depends on whether a large number of colors are used or only a small number (e.g. an image written with a pencil). However, since the miniaturizing method of an image is selected by the user in such a conventional apparatus, it presents a drawback in that beginners or children having no knowledge of image processing may not be able to select a most suitable miniaturizing method.